It is generally an objective of food products manufactured for public consumption to enhance their nutritional properties. Nutritional fortification of cheese products may include supplementation with trace requirements or additives that benefit the overall state of health of the human body. Examples of nutritional fortification include supplementation by vitamins, minerals, and comparable materials. These supplements are either absolutely essential for human metabolism or enhance the provision of substances that may not be available in sufficient amounts in a normal diet.
Currently known methods for supplementing cheese products with nutritional additives generally involve providing the supplement to the fermenting dairy composition. Although such a method will provide the nutrients in question to the final cheese product, they may affect the fermentation process, often in an undesirable and/or unpredictable manner. Various microorganisms are used to curdle the milk and to provide the particular flavor of the chosen cheese variety. These microorganisms, however, may respond to the presence of the nutritional supplements by growing at an excessive rate, or by undergoing induction of metabolic pathways that otherwise are quiescent and not active. In addition, the presence of the nutritional supplements may enhance the growth of adventitious microbiological contaminants in the culture. Thus, in the presence of nutritional supplements, fermentation or other products may be produced which adversely affect sensory qualities, texture, mouthfeel, or other properties.
Moreover, the presence of such nutritional supplements may also affect the ability of the manufacturer to use or reuse "trim." During the manufacture of natural cheeses, trim cheese (e.g., over- or underweight pieces, edge trim, and the like) is often used to make process cheese. Trim containing nutritional supplements will often not be suitable for preparing process cheese. Unusable trim material would have to be discarded or otherwise disposed of in an environmentally acceptable manner. Such waste would increase the cost to the manufacturer and, ultimately, to the consumer.
For these reasons there remains a need for methods that introduce nutritional supplements into cheese products while providing cheeses that retain their flavor, texture, and mouthfeel. There further remains a need to provide cheese products fortified with any of a broad range of nutritional supplements. There further remains a need for a process of preparing nutritionally enhanced cheese which does not adversely affect the use of trim in process cheese. The present invention fulfils these needs.